


keeping score

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [156]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cousins, Galadriel has a wee pinch of foresight, Gen, House of Finwe dynamics, Introspection, discussion of other characters, on the road, this is before Ulmo's Bridge (Losgar) obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21542845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: “Why do you dislike them so? Finrod doesn’t. Neither does your father.”Galadriel does not shy away from the question; she knows exactly what is asked, and she answers it.
Relationships: Aredhel & Galadriel | Artanis
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [156]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	keeping score

“I wish you would give Father a proper accounting. I remain under suspicion, _Artanis_ , and I do not like it.”

“Believe me, I tried!” Artanis—Galadriel—is fearless. Artanis must permit her that. To stay hidden for weeks! And then, with smudged face and tangled hair, to face down _Father_! Even Finrod had looked rather forbidding, rare exasperation shaking the beaded braids threaded at his temples.

 _“Artanis!”_ he had cried. _“What are we going to do with you?”_

At present, Aredhel sucks her teeth, with an unladylike puckering of lips, and then she passes the second apple to her cousin. She is half-finished with the first; before Galadriel joined her, she planned to squirrel away the second, but friends are friends.

Even now.

“Maedhros will think it funny,” Galadriel says, unexpectedly. It is not often that Galadriel raises the subject of their Feanorian cousins. Perhaps Uncle Finarfin’s family do not think of them with any frequency.

Aredhel, instead, feels as if she has spent all her life hearing their names…from Fingon, mostly. His outward fervor appeared to abate after the dreadful summer, but their westward launch has raised his adoration to its greatest heights once more.

She herself does not…does not disdain them in the same way that Galadriel does. Maedhros himself is pleasant and intriguing company (for the most part); Celegorm and even weaselly Curufin are friends. Aredhel is eager to see them again; to snicker over Turgon and Elenwe, to boast of their adventures between New York and Missouri. She is sure that they have been in all sorts of scrapes. With Father at the head of her own party, she knows that prosaicism will ever prevail over epic poetry.

“What will Maedhros think funny?” she remembers, at length, to ask.

“That I came. Finrod is all stuffed, of course, because he _has_ to be…but Maedhros will say something admiring like, _you’re a right devil, Galadriel_.” Here, Galadriel tilts her words with Irish flavor. Aredhel laughs.

“He probably will. Celegorm would pull that sort of stunt, you know. Running away. Hiding like a pirate.”

“Celegorm is probably pulling leaves and twigs and a whole chipmunk out of his hair, as we speak.”

Aredhel snickers. The coaches are circled, the wind is soft and sweet overhead, and they may sleep in the open air so long as they stay very near the fireside. So Father has decreed. Still, they are far enough from the others that she ventures to ask,

“Why do you dislike them so? Finrod doesn’t. Neither does your father.”

Galadriel does not shy away from the question; she knows exactly what is asked, and she answers it.

“The truth is,” she says, “That half…half of it is loyalty. To you. I don’t mean to be sharp, cousin, but Uncle Feanor _did_ threaten your father and family. Father says we mustn’t decide forgiveness for other people, but _I_ hold a grudge. I’ll hold one for the rest of my days if I must, just to keep the rest of you safe.”

Aredhel scratches her fingers against the packed earth, threading them through the tender blades of grass that crowd around their feet. Celegorm taught her, on one lazy summer morning, to seek for the little inroads of small creatures there beneath the guileless thatch. “How can a grudge keep us safe?”

“A grudge means…that I do not trust them.” Resolutely, Galadriel sets to the task of plaiting her hair for the evening. In the last light of day, her face is fine-boned and fierce, sharp like Finrod’s. “That is all, for now.”


End file.
